On Tuesday, while writing about the news that the Under Armour logo will begin appearing on MLB jersey chests in 2020, I said, “How can we avoid [the insidious influence of advertisers] in a realm like sports, where advertising is everywhere, from TV commercials to stadium naming rights? I’ll have more to say about that — and will be presenting you with a small defense mechanism — in a few days.”

Today is that day.

So: Back in May I wrote about a Trail Blazers fan who was annoyed that the Rose Garden had been renamed as the Moda Center, so he devised a Chrome extension that automatically changed the new corporate name back to the old name. At the time, I wrote:

Imagine if we had additional extensions for all the other corporate-named venues out there — how awesome would that be?

I’m not a software engineer, so I don’t know anything about how to develop a Chrome extension, or how to make it available for people to install. But I bet some of you folks know something about that.

About two weeks later I got a note from a software-savvy reader named Patrick Nance, who said he’d be willing to take a crack at it. Even better, he was interested in having the extension handle more than just stadium and arena names. “In my mind,” he wrote, “a fully featured product would have bowl game name support.”

“I like the way you think,” I wrote back. “Go for it.”

A month passed, and then another, and eventually I forgot about the whole thing. But Patrick recently got back in touch with some good news: The Chrome extension is now ready for download and installation — and he’s come up with a Firefox version as well. (Sorry, no Safari or IE.)

As you can see from those links, the extension is called Naming Wrongs (the same name that No Mas and I used for our line of “I’m Calling It…” T-shirts a few years back). Here are some notes:

1. Unlike the program devised by the Trail Blazers fan, Naming Wrongs does not apply to the entire web. For now, it only affects ESPN, SI, Yahoo Sports, Bleacher Report, Fox Sports, Sporting News, USA Today’s For the Win, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, and SB Nation (only the sbnation.com domain for now, not the individual sub-sites, but Patrick is working on that), along with the league sites for the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, and NCAA.

I initially asked Patrick to have the extension apply to Uni Watch as well. I figured if we were going to subject other sports sites to our scrutiny, we should also include Uni Watch. But Patrick pointed out that Uni Watch sometimes intentionally refers to corporate venue or bowl game names in order to make a point, and that the extension would make that impossible. So Uni Watch is not under the extension’s umbrella, at least for now.

2. The extension automatically changes the names of many MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL stadiums and arenas to their pre-corporatized versions, as follows:

“There are some major grey areas with some of these places,” says Patrick. “For instance, the Seahawks currently play at CenturyLink Field, formerly Qwest Field — but for the first two years of its existence, it was called Seahawks Stadium. I’ve lived in Seattle for more than eight years now and I’ve never once heard anybody say Seahawks Stadium. In fact, I more often hear people still call it Qwest, despite CenturyLink having been the name for several years now. I’ll be interested to hear what the community has to say on cases like that.”

3. The extension also automatically changes the names of many college football bowl games, as follows:

“Admittedly, I swung a pretty big hammer on the bowl games,” says Patrick. “For example, I changed the Outback Bowl to the Hall of Fame Bowl, despite the game being much more widely known, at this point, as Outback. Maybe I’ll dial that back if I get enough feedback.”

To get an idea of how effective the extension is, check out this page — first without the extension and then after installing it. Night and day!

Is a browser extension going to solve all our problems? Of course not. But it’s a small way to fight back against — and liberate oneself from — the relentless incursion of corporate culture into every nook and cranny of our lives. It’s also a good way to reclaim the older, pre-corporatized venue and bowl game names — and with them, I’d like to think, a measure of sanity.

The extension works well, won’t mess up any other aspects of your browser, and is free. Go on — try it.

And now, allow me to anticipate some of your reactions by slipping into FAQ mode:

This is stupid. Naming rights deals for sports venues and bowl games don’t bother me.

No problemo! We know this browser extension won’t be for everyone. If it doesn’t appeal to you, feel free to ignore it.

I understand what you’re getting at with this project, but I think you’re overreacting. Naming rights deals aren’t evil — they’re just business.

“It’s just business” is often an accurate explanation for why something has taken place, but it is rarely a sufficient justification for why that thing has taken place. I don’t want to get bogged down in that distinction here, but I’ve provided a more detailed exploration of that topic on this page.

I think what you’re doing is wrong. Those companies paid a lot of money to have their names attached to those buildings and games, and you’re making it all worthless.

Before I respond to that, let me ask you a few questions: When you watch TV, do you pay close attention to every commercial, or do you get up and go to the bathroom? When you DVR something and watch it later, do you watch the commercials, or do you fast-forward past them? When you’re watching a web video, do you watch the entire pre-roll commercial, or do you click the “Skip Ad” button? When an ad pops up across a web page, do you thoughtfully consider it, or do you click the “X” in the top-right corner? When you’re reading a magazine, do you look at every ad, or do you just turn the page and go to the next article? When you’re driving on the highway, do you closely scrutinize every billboard, or do just drive past most of them without even noticing them? After all, those advertisers all paid a lot of money for those ads. By not engaging with the ads, you’re making those expenditures worthless.

I trust you get my point. Just because advertisers have paid a certain price in order to get our attention does not mean they’re automatically entitled to that attention. Our attention is not property that can be purchased and owned. It’s ours to give or withhold as we see fit. This browser extension is a small way of withholding that attention from a very small subset of the advertised world.

You obviously just hate capitalism. What’s up with that?

Oh, come on! For the past 20 years I’ve sustained myself by making and selling things (articles, media projects, T-shirts, membership cards, etc.), which means I’ve led a more capitalistic life than most people. But I think of capitalism as a mechanism or a tool, not a religion. And like all tools, it should make our lives easier and better. When it runs amok (or, as I like to say, when it succeeds too well), it can and should be reined in. Maybe you don’t think the explosion of corporate-named sports venues and bowl games qualifies as “running amok,” but I do. I see it as a symptom of something I’ve mentioned before: our disturbing transition from a market economy to a market society.

You’re such a hypocrite. You claim to hate advertising, but your website is littered with ads!

Actually, I’ve never once — literally not one single time — claimed to hate advertising. What I have said many, many times, and will continue to say when the situation calls for it, is that I’m opposed to advertising spreading into places where it doesn’t belong. Selling the name of something is insipid — it’s part of our culture’s descent into Idiocracy. Moreover, sports venues and bowl games have lots and lots of revenue streams. They don’t need to sell their identities to get by. This website, by contrast, gives away its content for free. Its only way to raise revenue, at least for now, is by selling advertising space. If you think those two situations are equivalent, and that I’m therefore a hypocrite, well, you’re entitled to your opinion. But I respectfully disagree.

That said, however, I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with Uni Watch’s role in the world of internet advertising. For that matter, I’m getting more and more uncomfortable with the standard model of web content delivery, which has been a disaster for the industry I work in and is problematic in several other ways. I hope to have more to say about that in a month or two, but for now let’s just say I’m exploring some new options.

Meanwhile: If you have feedback to offer about the browser extension — suggestions on names that should or shouldn’t be changed, additional websites that should be covered, that sort of thing — feel free to get in touch here. (Please note that this is not the usual Uni Watch email address. It is a new address that’s been created specifically for this project, so Patrick and I can both access it. Please use this address, not the Uni Watch address, for giving feedback on this project. Thanks.)

• • • • •

Friday Flashback: My latest Friday Flashback column on ESPN takes a look back at NFL throwbacks that have been worn in the past but are currently off-limits due to the one-shell rule (like the Steelers’ 1962 throwback, shown above). Check it out here.

• • • • •

Click to enlarge

Thursday-night NFL report: Last night’s NFL game featured the mono-red Chiefs vs. the mono-white Raiders. Of course, we’ve seen the Chiefs in blood-clot mode before (last night marked the third different sock design they’ve worn while going mono-red), so I’m more interested in talking about the Raiders.

As you can see above, Oakland went with black-outlined silver numbers. There’s precedent for that in their uniform history, but it’s not as simple as you might think. Here’s the deal:

• In 1963 and ’64, the Raiders’ white jerseys hadd silver numbers with very thick black outlining (click first photo to enlarge):

That outlining seems almost comically heavy, right? That design, with the thick outline, was reprised as a throwback in 2009 (click to enlarge):

The Raiders dabbled with silver numbers again in 1970, but this time the black outline was thinner (click to enlarge):

They revived this number style for a throwback set in 1994, but that uniform was actually a mash-up, because they used the 1963 helmet logo (with the light background on the shield) and the 1970 number style:

The 1970 version of the numbers — the one with the thinner outline — is the one they used last night:

It doesn’t look bad in that photo, but I actually found the numbers a bit hard to make out on TV. If the Raiders ever try silver numbers again, maybe they can find a happy medium between the thick and thin outlining.

• • • • •

Click to enlarge

Ho-ho-ho: One of our most cherished December rituals here at Uni Watch HQ is the annual arrival of baseball uni-patterned holiday cookies from longtime reader Elena Elms. This year she went with a Negro Leagues theme (a suggestion from her friend and fellow Uni Watch reader/contributor Tom Arnel). The teams are, clockwise from top left, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, Pittsburgh Crawfords, New York Cubans, Kansas City Monarchs, Detroit Stars, St. Louis Stars, Atlanta Black Crackers, Milwaukee Bears, Homestead Grays, and Baltimore Elite Giants.

I especially like Elena’s execution of the Elite Giants design. A very nice script and bi-colored placket piping:

I’m happy to report that the cookies are, as usual, as delicious as they are attractive. Thanks so much, Elena — you’re the best.

• • • • •

LAST CALL for the last 2016 shirt: Today’s the final day to get the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s last design of 2016. The design is a mash-up of uniform elements from all of our previous 2016 shirts (click to enlarge):

It comes in four color options — our usual grey, black, green, plus a new “military green” (that’s what the manufacturer calls it, although I’d just call it light olive) — and is also available with either short or long sleeves.

If you’ve ordered all five of this year’s previous shirts and also get this one, you’ll be eligible for our year-end “Collect ’Em All” prize, which will be a patch based on the jock tag design used on this year’s shirts. To qualify, please send me proof that you’ve bought all six shirts. The proof can either be (a) a photo showing all the shirts or (b) screen shots of the “Thank you for your order” emails you received from Teespring and Represent.

Hockey News: The NHL says it has no plans to reconsider the Vegas Golden Knights’ team name or logo, despite the team’s trademark application rejection from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The league and team are apparently proceeding under the assumption that the matter will eventually be resolved in their favor. … Check this out: Former Maple Leafs great Borje Salming in a Leafs softball uni (from Brian Wulff). … Ugly sweater jerseys for the Des Moines Buccaneers (from Robbie George). … The Sharks are giving away SF Giants-themed “Sharks” jerseys Saturday (from Jared Buccola). … More ugly sweater jerseys, this time for the Vancouver Giants (from Patrick Johnston). … New retro-themed Winter Classic pads, complete with waffleboard blocker, for Blackhawks G Scott Darling (from Marc-Louis Paprzyca).

It seems like just barely two weeks ago that the NHL’s newest franchise, the Vegas Golden Knights, unveiled their name and logo. Actually, it was barely two weeks ago — and now the whole thing is in doubt because the team’s trademark application has been rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. . . . → Read More: Rut-Roh: Trademark Flap Puts Vegas NHL Team’s Identity in Doubt]]>

It seems like just barely two weeks ago that the NHL’s newest franchise, the Vegas Golden Knights, unveiled their name and logo. Actually, it was barely two weeks ago — and now the whole thing is in doubt because the team’s trademark application has been rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Why? Because it’s too similar to the mark used by the College of Saint Rose Golden Knights, a small school in Albany.

The details are spelled out in this SB Nation story, which was published last night. To clarify an important point: Saint Rose did not challenge the Vegas team’s mark. Rather, a USPTO attorney noticed the similarities between the two marks while reviewing the trademark application and rejected the filing on that basis.

The team has a chance to respond to the USPTO ruling, and ownership put out a statement late last night saying they intend to do just that. In case you can’t read the fairly small type, it says:

There are countless examples of college sports teams and professional sports teams with coexisting names, including Vegas Golden Knights and Clarkson Golden Knights, UCLA Bruins and Boston Bruins, U of Miami Hurricanes and Carolina Hurricanes, etc. We will plan on making these arguments and others in our detailed written response to the office action which must be filed by June 7, 2017.

Office actions like these are not at all unusual, and we will proceed with the help of outside counsel in preparing a response to this one.

It’s not clear why team ownership didn’t already have this issue settled before unveiling the team name two weeks ago. Seems like a major failure of due diligence, right?

I sent a note last night to Uni Watch’s resident intellectual property expert, attorney Anthony Verna, to get his take on this. Here’s his response:

1) Looking at the marks, both of them share “Golden Knights.” The question is if those marks use “Golden Knights” in their dominant portion. They do — even though the NHL team’s filing is “Vegas Golden Knights,” we get to ignore “Vegas” because the goods/services are going to actually come from Las Vegas. (We call that geographically descriptive in trademark law. If the goods/services come from the a geographic area mentioned in the trademark, then the mark describes an aspect of the goods/services and the descriptive portion is not protectable.)

2) The goods/services are exactly the same. Regardless of sport, and regardless of skill level, the exhibition of a sport is going to be deemed the same as the exhibition of another sport and that’s the situation here. This is true even though price points are different, salaries are different, the reasons consumers consume their products are different, etc. (The USPTO is not there to say that the NHL price point for a ticket is radically different than a college’s price point for a ticket, therefore, their consumer markets are radically different.)

All is not lost for the NHL team, though. Many trademarks receive this “office action” (which is our fancy trademark law terminology for “rejection”). The Vegas team could present a substantive response, arguing why the marks are different (and they have different stylizations, different pronunciations, and probably different denotations and connotations). Another response would be to have what we call a co-existence agreement, in which both parties agree there are substantive differences in the markets or in the consumers or in the channels of advertising. Submitting evidence of an agreement in which both parties agree to their differences will usually push a mark towards registration.

Also: The NHL team could appeal to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (you heard about that federal administrative court in the Redskins cases) and argue that the USPTO attorney is incorrect in issuing the office actions. The NHL team could appeal to the TTAB and try to cancel the college’s registration. There are so many different directions this could move in. It’s impossible to predict how it will play out.

Big thanks to Anthony for his expertise.

• • • • •

Culinary Corner: One of our holiday traditions here at Uni Watch is the annual appearance of my recipe for homemade Irish cream. In other words, homemade Bailey’s. In other words, melted ice cream that gets you drunk. It’s super-easy to make, it’ll make you the hero of whatever party you bring it to, and lots of you have told me how much you like it. Here’s how to do it:

Start with some decent Irish whiskey — Bushmills, Jameson, Tullamore Dew, something like that (but not super-high-end stuff, because the nuances will be lost in this preparation). Pour a pint of the whiskey into a large-ish container and mix it with a can of sweetened condensed milk, a pint of heavy whipping cream, a tablespoon of chocolate syrup, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, a quarter-teaspoon of almond extract, and a teaspoon of instant espresso powder dissolved in two tablespoons of hot water.

Mix well (if the container has a tight lid, you can just shake vigorously), refrigerate, serve over ice, and get ready to become the most popular person in the room. No need to thank me afterward, but you’ll want to do so anyway — trust me.

• • • • •

Blues news you can use: My favorite music is Delta country blues (i.e., the first generation of Mississippi country bluesmen, who recorded in the 1920s and ’30s) and golden-age Chicago blues (i.e., the next generation of bluesmen, who mostly learned on acoustic instruments while growing up in Mississippi and then moved to Chicago and made their country blues more urbanized and electric in the late 1940s and ’50s). And if you love that music as much as I do, this has been a very interesting week.

First, a new movie opened, called Two Trains Runnin’. It’s a documentary about an incredible series of coincidences that took place in Mississippi on a single day in the summer of 1964. First, there were three white college kids who’d driven down to the Delta from Boston in search of the enigmatic acoustic bluesman Son House (that’s him above), who had recorded a handful of 78s in the 1930s and ’40s and then vanished. On June 21, they found him. Unbeknownst to them, another carload of young white blues fans had driven to Mississippi all the way from California. They were searching for another vanished bluesman, Skip James. They found him on that same date — June 21. Meanwhile, swirling all around them was the tension and violence of Freedom Summer, as hundreds of civil rights activists were coming to Mississippi to set up schools and register black voters. On that same day, June 21, three of those activists were murdered, which would galvanize the civil rights movement and help lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Here’s the movie’s trailer:

I saw the movie last night. It’s powerful stuff, with the twin strands of the blues researchers and the civil rights activists occasionally intertwining. Two projects, both with complicated racial dimensions, both involving outsiders descending on Mississippi. I knew the stories of the Son House and Skip James being rediscovered, and of course I knew the famous story of the civil rights murders, but I hadn’t been aware that they’d all taken place on the same day (which, for what it’s worth, was the day I turned three months old). I cried a few times during the movie — in part because blues often affects me that way, and in part because of the tragedy that was the state of Mississippi in 1964.

For those of you in NYC, Two Trains Runnin’ is currently playing at the Metrograph and will be there at least through next Thursday. Don’t miss.

The other blues-related news this week was the release of the new Rolling Stones album, Blue & Lonesome, which consists entirely of Chicago blues covers. The Stones haven’t been artistically relevant in over 30 years, but they’re still my favorite rock and roll band, and a straight-up blues LP sounds like a good approach for them, at least in theory. They got their start playing blues covers, and their name comes from a Muddy Waters song.

Unfortunately, it’s a dud. The guitars crunch and wail at all the appropriate junctures, Mick’s vocals are okay, his harmonica is more than okay, the sound and engineering are fine (although I continue to hate the way producer Don Was insists on making Charlie’s cymbal crashes sound like a steam pump), and the whole project feels respectful and, at times, joyous. But it also feels empty. Why? A few thoughts:

• When the Stones played lots of blues covers in the early 1960s, it was because they hadn’t yet learned how to write songs. They’re doing a full album of blues covers now because they’ve essentially stopped writing songs. They haven’t released an album of originals in 11 years, and they haven’t released a good album in 35 years. In short: They’re tapped out. Viewed in that context, an album of blues covers feels more like a lazy placeholder than anything else.

• The whole point of doing a cover version (to say nothing of a whole album of cover versions) is that it should tell us something new about the song, the artist covering it, or both. These covers do neither. The arrangements are straightforward reproductions of the originals, and it’s not exactly a secret that the Stones are big blues fans. There’s no revelation here, no challenge, nothing to be learned. Just lots of confirmation of what we already knew. The whole thing feels way too easy, too comfortable.

• One reason those original Chicago blues records still sound so exciting today is that they sound primitive. The instruments and amps were battered, the musicianship was superb but very raw, the sound engineering was even rawer, and the vocals had all sorts of incredible nuances that had to do with issues of race, class, rural upbringing, and even education (people who can’t read or write tend to listen more acutely, which in turn means they tend to vocalize more acutely). When the Stones played blues covers in the early years of their career, they had a primitive aspect as well, because they were still learning to play, learning how to command their sound. But now they’re first-rate career professionals playing with state-of-the-art gear in a state-of-the-art studio. There are some raw bits on the new album, but the rawness feels manufactured or even curated, not organic. It’s more like a museum version of the blues.

• Another big reason those Chicago blues records still sound so good is that the bluesmen were, well, legitimately blue. They led hardscrabble lives, they often lived in slums, they rarely had much money, plus they had all the attendant problems of being black men in a highly segregated city well before the civil rights era. The urgency of their lives — and the escape from that urgency that their music represented — was reflected in their recordings. The Stones, by contrast, are among the wealthiest and most comfortable people on the planet. I don’t begrudge them that status (on the contrary, like I said before, I’m a big fan), but it’s not a situation that leads to good blues.

• When the Stones were playing blues covers back in the early ’60s, most white music fans — hell, most white people, period — didn’t know jackshit about the blues. They’d never heard of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, or Little Walter, much less heard their music. So when the Stones played that music, it was challenging, it was risky, it was even educational. In 1965 they were asked to appear on the TV show Shindig and said they’d only do it if Howlin’ Wolf could appear on the show with them — a seriously ballsy move at the time (and the producers agreed to it!). Half a century later, though, blues is now an entrenched part of rock and roll’s origin story and most rock fans know the drill. The Stones deserve credit for being a key part of the blues’ ascent from historical footnote to treasured American cultural legacy, but one result of that ascent is that there’s really no point in them, or any conventional rock band, playing blues covers anymore.

(As a side note: Blue & Lonesome has what appears to be one of history’s laziest and worst album covers. Even more puzzlingly, the vinyl version is a double-LP — absurd for an album that has only 12 songs totaling 42 minutes. I realize most of the people who listen to this album will be streaming it, not purchasing a physical copy, but still.)

So my tl;dr take on this week’s blues news: See the movie, skip the album.

• • • • •

Going, going…: Today’s the next-to-last day to get the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s final design of 2016. The design is a mash-up of uniform elements from all of our previous 2016 shirts (click to enlarge):

The only new element is the baseball cap (which didn’t appear on our baseball-themed shirt because the player was wearing a batting helmet). It’s comes in four color options — our usual grey, black, green, plus a new “military green” (that’s what the manufacturer calls it, although I’d just call it light olive) — and is also available with either short or long sleeves.

The shirt will be available through tomorrow night. The shirts are due to ship right after Christmas, so they should arrive in time for you to wear them on New Year’s Eve. (I had hoped to have them delivered in time for Christmas, but it just wasn’t possible to get things finalized in time for that. Sorry.)

If you’ve ordered all five of this year’s previous shirts and also get this one, you’ll be eligible for our year-end “Collect ’Em All” prize, which will be a patch based on the jock tag design used on this year’s shirts. To qualify, please send me proof that you’ve bought all six shirts. The proof can either be (a) a photo showing all the shirts or (b) screen shots of the “Thank you for your order” emails you received from Teespring and Represent.

Baseball News: Indiana’s new uniforms have candy striping on the sleeve cuffs (from Ryan Cotter). … On several occasions during the 1991 season, the Expos’ Tim Wallach wore road pants with the stripe colors inverted. Instead of red in front like the rest of the team, Wallach had blue in front (good spot by Denis Lacloche). … Clint Evans wanted to see what the Dodgers would look like with the Under Armour-branded uniforms, so I made a Photoshop for him. … Several minor league teams, including the San Jose Giants, had some themed jerseys on display at the Winter Meetings (from @213MFS and Andy Horne). … The Chiba Lotte Marines’ stadium has a new logo and naming rights advertiser (from Jeremy Brahm). … Most schools and teams that adopt the Brewers old ball-in-glove logo have the initials MB. Here’s how the Rocky River Bucs handled it.

NFL News: Odd sight this past Sunday as the Saints wore throwbacks but team legends wore current jerseys, complete with the neck roll collars (from Scott Peterson). … Never meet your heroes: A Steelers fan will never wear her Antonio Brown jersey again after the wide receiver showed up late and treated her rudely at a meet-and-greet autograph session (from Brinke). … Washington players shared their thoughts on their personal team-specific emojis (from Jon Solomonson). … The Southern California Sun of the long-defunct WFL had a good helmet cart (from Dwayne White). … If the NFL is the No Fun League, then what can we call the CFL? League commissioner Jeffrey Orridge fined more than 20 players for sock violations during the Grey Cup. Two other players were fined for wearing “improper” (not Adidas) footwear (from @PureLipschitz and Wade Heidt). … No photos, thankfully, but San Francisco coach Chip Kelly says his father was buried in a 49ers sweat suit. … Here’s a better look at the Seahawks’ new green end zones (from Eric Hansman).

College Football News: Tom Herman’s business cards show how Texas’s logo has changed over the years. Herman is the new coach and was a graduate assistant in 1999 and 2000 (from Alex Speth). … A Louisiana company produced marching band figurines for a few schools including Ohio State, USC, and Notre Dame (from James Gilbert).

Hockey News: The Ontario Reign are holding a vote for next season’s 10th anniversary logo. They’re all a tad bit busy, but I would vote for B (from Kristopher Sharpe). … Fox Sports North used the old Maple Leafs logo in a graphic last night (from David Steinle). … Gustavus Adolphus College, quaintly known as the Gusties, wear uniforms that are based on what the 1937 team wore (from Brent Kivell). … Boston College G Katie Burt hails from Lynn, Mass., and has a very cool shout-out to her hometown on her mask’s backplate (from Tris Wykes). … Maple Leafs G Karri Ramo’s new mask has an Edgar Allen Poe theme (from Wade Heidt).

NBA/ABA News: Darrun Hilliard II’s NOB is off-center. My guess is that the Pistons applied the suffix to a jersey he wore last year, when his NOB was just “Hilliard.” … Jeremy Lin, who’s missed the majority of the season due to a hamstring injury, has worn some pretty fashionable courtside outfits. … According to a note in the Jan. 6, 1968, edition of The Pittsburgh Press, a game between the ABA’s Pittsburgh Pipers and Dallas Chaparrals was delayed for more than an hour because the Chaps’ players and uniforms were sent on separate planes, and the uni plane was running late. Also: Note the 8:15pm tip-off time — much later than the starting time for most sporting events today (from Jerry Wolper).

Grab Bag: A shop in Jerusalem sells American sports T-shirts with team names in Hebrew (from Brian Spiess). … The cycling team Lotto Soudal has a new uniform, and one of the changes is a second team logo near the shoulder that will allow riders to “capture it on their selfies” (from Alan Evans). … Here’s a good collection of the world’s best volleyball jerseys this year (from Jeremy Brahm).

I played football in a rec league from fourth grade through eighth grade. I was a small kid but I had a strong leg, so I sometimes ended up as the punter. My coaches gave me a few pointers, but mostly I just tried to mimic the . . . → Read More: Some Thoughts About the Aesthetics of Punting]]>

I played football in a rec league from fourth grade through eighth grade. I was a small kid but I had a strong leg, so I sometimes ended up as the punter. My coaches gave me a few pointers, but mostly I just tried to mimic the NFL punters who I saw on TV. All of those guys held the ball horizontally out in front of them and then dropped it so that it laid parallel to the ground as it fell (just like Rams punter Johnny Hekker is doing in the photo shown above), so that’s what I did too. I learned certain variations — drop the ball from a higher position if you want the punt to go high but not as far, drop it from a lower position if you want it to go low and long — but the ball’s horizontal orientation was a constant.

Around that same time, I was obsessively reading and re-reading a 1960 book about the NFL called The Pros, which featured a two-page spread of punters dropping the ball in that same horizontal manner. The accompanying text even referred to the ball being “dropped precisely flat and level” (click to enlarge):

Judging by other old photos and video, it appears that punters had pretty much always punted like that, with the ball staying parallel to the ground. And they kept on punting that way for a long time. There were a few guys who had their little quirks — Reggie Roby, for example, always held the ball really high (and, as all good uni-watchers know, wore a wristwatch on the field). For the most part, though, punters’ styles and forms were pretty interchangeable.

But at some point in recent years — I’m not sure exactly when — a new way of thinking came into vogue. Depending on the situation, punters began dropping the ball with the nose pointing down:

Every time I see a punter drop the ball this way, I wince. Part of it is that it’s not the way I learned to punt and not what I grew up seeing. Mostly, though, I wince because I always think it looks like a shanked punt waiting to happen. Like, if you keep the ball horizontal, then you have a nice, broad surface to strike with your foot. But if you point the nose down — well, then you’re gonna kick the nose, and that’s not going to turn out well at all. Imagine a horizontal ball landing on the ground (it’ll bounce fairly true) versus a nose-down ball landing on the ground (it’ll bounce in all sorts of crazy directions). The same thing will happen on your foot, right?

Of course, that’s not how it actually works. The nose-down ball also presents a broad surface to impact — you just have to hit it when it’s lower to the ground, so your foot is properly angled to mate with the ball, as nicely demonstrated in these photos of Broncos punter Riley Dixon:

I’m pretty sure this is a variation of — and an improvement upon — the old “drop it lower, kick it lower and farther” routine, right? Maybe some people with legitimate punting expertise can fill us in on that. But this website is about aesthetics, and this new-ish way of punting, with the nose pointed down, just does not look right to me. Nossir.

What do you folks think?

• • • • •

Click to enlarge

Naval gazing: Yesterday we had Army’s uniform for the annual Army/Navy game. Now we have the Navy design, which is based on the team’s 1963 uniforms. Here’s some additional info and photos.

Phil will take an in-depth look at the Army and Navy uniforms on Saturday, so you’ll want to check back here for that.

• • • • •

T-Shirt Club reminder: In case you missed it last week, the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s final design of 2016 is now available for ordering. The design is a mash-up of uniform elements from all of our previous 2016 shirts (click to enlarge):

The only new element is the baseball cap (which didn’t appear on our baseball-themed shirt because the player was wearing a batting helmet). It’s comes in four color options — our usual grey, black, green, plus a new “military green” (that’s what the manufacturer calls it, although I’d just call it light olive) — and is also available with either short or long sleeves.

The shirt will be available through this Friday. The shirts are due to ship right after Christmas, so they should arrive in time for you to wear them on New Year’s Eve. (I had hoped to have them delivered in time for Christmas, but it just wasn’t possible to get things finalized in time for that. Sorry.)

If you’ve ordered all five of this year’s previous shirts and also get this one, you’ll be eligible for our year-end “Collect ’Em All” prize, which will be a patch based on the jock tag design used on this year’s shirts. To qualify, please send me proof that you’ve bought all six shirts. The proof can either be (a) a photo showing all the shirts or (b) screen shots of the “Thank you for your order” emails you received from Teespring and Represent.

Hockey News: The Blues have a jersey-style display of retired numbers on a wall outside their locker room, with the players’ names all shown as FNOBs (from Moe Khan). … The Predators added a small helmet decal last night for the East Tennessee forest fire victims (from The Soulful Ginger). … If you’ve been wondering what an NHL version of Color Rash would look like, wonder no more (thanks, Mike). … Awesome 1938 throwbacks for the Alaska Nanooks (from Mike Eidelbes).

Basketball News: This is pretty good: underwear that looks like NBA game shorts (thanks, Mike). … Wake Forest wore grey alts last night. As you can see, the jersey design splits “Wake” and “Forest” over two lines, but the school’s style guide says the school name should always appear on one line (excellent contribution from Will Lawson). … Florida State wore red at home last night. … New BFBS alts last night for Texas. Sorry, that’s the best picture I could find (from @HomeWhites82).

Soccer News: UNC won’t use certain keeper jersey colors. No red, because of NC State, and no royal blue, because of Duke. … Rainbow-patterned jerseys in support of LGBT rights in the video game FIFA 17 has run afoul of a Russian law that prohibits “gay propaganda.” … The Carolina Railhawks are now being known as NCFC and are aiming to become part of MLS (from @EleteTSC). … England is about to announce a new kit deal with Nike (thanks, Phil).

Grab Bag: There’s an operation called the Sport Gallery that has locations in Toronto, NYC, and Vancouver. They sell mostly retro-themed photos, apparel, and related merch. Ted Arnold recently visited the Toronto outlet and took these photos. … New kit manufacturer for the Super Rugby team Sharks. … This is pretty cool: cycling gloves with built-in turn signals. … An architecture firm in Chicago wants to use Pink Floyd-style pig ballons to obscure the city’s Trump Tower logo. … New uniforms for the Nevada Highway Patrol. … Socks are reportedly the holiday season’s most popular gift. Key quote, from the owner of a sock-centric website: ” It’s a way to express yourself. Sometimes having the ‘f’-word on your socks, even if nobody else can see them, is enough to get you through the day.” I’m not sure if something invisible qualifies as “express[ing] yourself,” but, uh, okay. … The historic Nike Moon Shoes that Bruce Mortenson wore at the 1972 Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, are up for auction.

MLB made it official yesterday: They confirmed that Under Armour will be taking over from Majestic as the game’s official uniform outfitter in 2020 — a development that had first been reported, but not officially acknowledged, about six weeks ago.

MLB made it official yesterday: They confirmed that Under Armour will be taking over from Majestic as the game’s official uniform outfitter in 2020 — a development that had first been reported, but not officially acknowledged, about six weeks ago.

But yesterday’s announcement came with a new wrinkle: While the Majestic logo has appeared on MLB sleeves, the Under Armour logo will be appearing on the upper-right chest area.

This is, of course, extremely disappointing. Just as the addition of the New Era logo to MLB caps collapsed the wall between major and minor league caps, and also between on-field and retail caps, the chest placement of the Under Armour mark will erase the boundary between professional and college jerseys, the latter of which often have the marker’s mark on the chest. It’s the latest step in what seems like an inexorable spread of branding and advertising on sports uniforms.

Baseball isn’t the only college sport that features chest-positioned maker’s marks — you can see the same thing in college football, college hockey, college basketball, and so on. Chest-based logo creep is also common in lots of international sports, like soccer, rugby, and cricket, along with Japanese baseball and many others. But just as the Big Four pro leagues here in North America have resisted the use of uniform advertising, they’ve also kept manufacturer logos off of their chests. That will change next October, when NBA uniforms begin carrying the Nike logo on the chest (along with uni ad patches, of course). With MLB moving to a chest mark in 2020, you have to wonder how long it’ll be before the NFL and NHL move their maker’s marks to a front-facing location. All of this feels like a move toward a more international model of uniform design.

So how will it look? We can get a hint by looking at Under Armour’s college and high school uniforms. Here’s a good example (click to enlarge):

But it’s one thing to see a chest logo on the jersey of a team you’ve never heard of. It’s another to see it on a jersey design you’ve been staring at for years. And thanks to the magic of digital imaging, it’s easy to get a sense of what that will look like:

And we already have a good sense of what the Giants will look like, because Under Armour already outfits the Yomiuri Giants, who have the same color scheme and a similar jersey design:

Of course, all of this is still four seasons away. And will we get used to it, just as we’ve gotten used to all the other little things that have chipped away at the integrity of uniforms? Yes, we will — but it’s beginning to feel like death from a thousand cuts (to the uniform as well as to my psyche). And if you don’t think the move to a chest mark is a big deal, check out this Bloomberg News story, which says the chest placement doubled the value of the deal for MLB. Think about that — Under Armour was willing to pay twice as much to move the logo from the sleeve to the chest. That’s how unavoidable the Under Armour mark is going to be.

That story also includes the following quote from Under Armour founder Kevin Plank: “Think of a Yankees fan who is standing in front of a shoe wall deciding what they want to buy. They will think about the fact that there is an Under Armour logo on the front of their jersey.”

And there you have it: The point of Under Armour’s deal with MLB is to sell sneakers. That isn’t really a big revelation — you probably already realized it, at least on an intuitive level — but it’s really something to see it spelled out so plainly, right?

By coincidence, the day before this news broke I was reading a really good article about the encroachment of advertising into everywhere from national parks to report cards and permission slips and even church sermons (which all comes across as another example of a system that has succeeded too well). The guy who wrote that piece, Tim Wu, has a new book called The Attention Merchants, which is about the history of advertising’s various attempts to worm its way into our brains (like, say, by putting a logo on a baseball jersey in order to sell sneakers). I haven’t read it yet, but there are reviews here, here, and here, and there’s an interview with Wu here.

Wu’s thesis is that we need to be more selective about what we pay attention to, and that we shouldn’t give away our attention so easily, because that’s when advertisers get to manipulate us. But how can we avoid that in a realm like sports, where advertising is everywhere, from TV commercials to stadium naming rights? I’ll have more to say about that — and will be presenting you with a small defense mechanism — in a few days. And what about all the advertising on this here website? I’ll have more to say about that shortly as well.

Meanwhile, let’s enjoy the look of the next three MLB seasons. Well, except for the caps.

———

One footnote to all of this: Ever since news of the Under Armour deal first surfaced in October, officials in Pennsylvania have been very concerned about preserving the 600 job at Majestic’s factory there, and they’re now lobbying to have Under Armour either acquire that facility or use it as a subcontractor. Lots of good info here.

Parachutes not included: Army unveiled its uniform for this weekend’s Army/Navy game, and it’s a doozy. It’s based on the uniforms of Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne Division, with a difficult number font, patches that identify individual regiments and battalions within the division and a helmet design mimics the netting worn by soldiers of the era. There’s additional info here, and here are some additional pics (click to enlarge) and a promotional video:

Interestingly, as you can see, the flag patch (which has 48 stars, don’tcha know) is facing the “right” way — which is actually the wrong way, according to proper flag protocol. Phil will have more to say about that, and about the rest of this uniform, and also about the upcoming Navy uniform, on Saturday, so you’ll want to check back here for that.

• • • • •

Click to enlarge

Collector’s CornerBy Brinke Guthrie

The Dallas Cowboys look like the team to beat in this year’s Super Bowl derby. This “Doomsday Defense set” from the Danbury Mint reminds us that they were pretty good back in the 1960s and ’70s, too. Look at the detailing here! Mel Renfro, Bob Lilly, Chuck Howley, and Lee Roy Jordan were mainstays in Big D for years. How ’bout dem Cowboys!

T-Shirt Club reminder: In case you missed it last week, the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s final design of 2016 is now available for ordering. The design is a mash-up of uniform elements from all of our previous 2016 shirts (click to enlarge):

The only new element is the baseball cap (which didn’t appear on our baseball-themed shirt because the player was wearing a batting helmet). It’s comes in four color options — our usual grey, black, green, plus a new “military green” (that’s what the manufacturer calls it, although I’d just call it light olive) — and is also available with either short or long sleeves.

The shirt will be available through this Friday. The shirts are due to ship right after Christmas, so they should arrive in time for you to wear them on New Year’s Eve. (I had hoped to have them delivered in time for Christmas, but it just wasn’t possible to get things finalized in time for that. Sorry.)

If you’ve ordered all five of this year’s previous shirts and also get this one, you’ll be eligible for our year-end “Collect ’Em All” prize, which will be a patch based on the jock tag design used on this year’s shirts. To qualify, please send me proof that you’ve bought all six shirts. The proof can either be (a) a photo showing all the shirts or (b) screen shots of the “Thank you for your order” emails you received from Teespring and Represent.

On a personal note: One of my all-time favorite roadside attractions is Roadside America, a completely amazing and thoroughly charming miniature village in Shartlesville, Pa. If you’ve ever been there, you know how awesome it is.

Roadside America now needs our help. The roof is leaking, threatening the village display, and a new roof will cost at least $80,000. If Roadside America has given you pleasure over the years, as it has for me — or if you just care about preserving America’s vanishing culture of quirky roadside attractions — please consider donating to their repair fund. Thanks.

• • • • •

The TickerBy Mike Chamernik

Baseball News: The Dodgers held a press conference with Rich Hill yesterday after the pitcher re-signed with the team. He was given a cap without a New Era logo and a blank Dodgers jersey. Again, he re-signed with them, so he could’ve just worn a game jersey, or even a retail jersey, that already exists (from David Feigenbaum). … R.A. Dickey’s high school baseball team at Montgomery Bell in Nashville used the Brewers ball-in-glove logo (from David Arnott). … A few things are wrong with this Derek Jeter jersey-shirt (from Jack Connell).

NFL News: The NFL changed course and will allow the Titans and Browns, who had byes last Sunday, to wear customized cleats for Week 14. There had initially been reports that the custom cleats would not be allowed, but the league backtracked late in the day yesterday (from Brinke). … A sign in the Georgia Dome has former Falcons QB Steve Bartkowski’s name spelled incorrectly. As Jake Jahimiak points out, the sign includes a photo of Bartkowski holding a jersey with his name spelled properly. … Not only is the XFL’s website still online, but there’s a page with logo and uniform style guides for each team! Tremendous stuff (from Joe Gemma). … Remember how someone once compared the Buffalo Sabres’ “buffaslug” logo to Donald Trump’s hair? There’s a new seafood eatery in Kurdistan called Trump Fish, and it uses an illustration of Trump with his hair represented by the Chargers’ lightning bolt logo.

College Football News: Penn State will wear blue for the Rose Bowl. Also, “I’m convinced that Saturday night’s Big Ten Championship in Indy was the first time that Penn State has worn blue jerseys for an indoor game,” says William Yurasko. “They wore white for five indoor bowl games (’75, ’79, and ’83 Sugar and the ’99 and ’07 Alamo) along with away games at Syracuse, Minnesota, and Indiana (at the Hoosier Dome).” … Old Dominion will wear these white helmets for the Bahamas Bowl. That’s quite the logo (from @norfolkology).

Hockey News: Dunkin Donuts will become the official coffee, donut, and breakfast sandwich of the NHL. It’s an odd choice, because Tim Hortons is not only synonymous with Canada, but it was actually founded by an NHL Hall of Fame player.

NBA News: Chesapeake Energy, the company that has the naming rights for the Thunder’s arena, may have a new logo (from Justin Cliburn). … Here’s a short video clip that explains why Kelly Oubre Jr. of the Wizards likes his shorts fairly tight.

Soccer News: West Ham’s kit man talked about equipment requests, building relationships, and cleaning players’ boots (from @the_boot_room). … DHL was named the new sponsor/advertiser of Pumas, a Mexican club (from Ed Żelaski).

Grab Bag: In case you missed it during the Thanksgiving weekend, Paul wrote about the death of longtime Uni Watch contributor Terry Proctor back on Nov. 25. Here’s a more formal obituary from The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (from Steve Lega). … American Airlines introduced new uniforms for its workers in September, but the flight attendants union is calling for a recall. It suspects that the uniforms have triggered headaches, rashes, hives, burning skin and eye irritation for more than 1,000 flight attendants (from John Gogarty). … The stock markets have soared since the election, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average recently rising above 19,000 for the first time. Some traders are wearing “Dow 19,000” baseball caps to commemorate the milestone. They are inspired by the “Dow 10,000” hats that were popular in 1999 (from Jason Hillyer).

Yesterday the Tugboat Captain and I decided to pay a visit to Glacken’s, the estimable 76-year-old bar in the Bronx, where we watched plenty of football and dominoes (although not always in that order). The football was particularly pleasing to the eye, because the game on . . . → Read More: Monday Morning Uni Watch]]>

Click to enlarge

Yesterday the Tugboat Captain and I decided to pay a visit to Glacken’s, the estimable 76-year-old bar in the Bronx, where we watched plenty of football and dominoes (although not always in that order). The football was particularly pleasing to the eye, because the game on the tube was the Packers/Texans tilt at Lambeau, where it was snowing — plenty of photos here — although the domino action was definitely more intense. Best bar in NYC, hands down, plus we spent nearly an hour yakking with some guy who gave us tips on where to eat in Memphis. A win-win-win!

In other news from around the league yesterday:

• There was also a snow game in Chicago, where the Bears hosted the 49ers (lots of additional photos here). And a cold game in Chicago always means lots of cracked, peeling, or otherwise dysfunctional wishbone-C helmet decals:

• The Saints wore 1960s throwbacks (additional photos here). Man do I love that shade of gold for the pants and numerals. I don’t even mind that the shade of gold on the helmets didn’t match, although it would’ve been nice if they had gone with the slightly larger fluer de lis that they used to wear back in the day.

• The Bengals wore their orange alts. This was the first time since 2004 that they’ve worn the orange jerseys with black pants. Coach Marvin Lewis reportedly hates the look, but the players requested it. They’re 4-0 in that combo.

• In case you haven’t seen it before, Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett wear the world’s smallest shoulder pads.They’re basically kicker’s pads, and he says he wears them to make himself use good tackling technique. If he doesn’t do it right, it hurts.

• In a related item: Although the Titans and Browns had a bye yesterday, a Titans spokesperson had told me that a bunch of their players would be wearing the custom cleats this coming Sunday. But now there’s a report that those two teams won’t wear the cleats this Sunday after all. Hard to understand the thinking behind that.

CFB Playoff unis released, sort of: For the third straight season, all four of the College Football Playoff teams are Nike-outfitted. And so the world is once again engaging in the odd ritual in which everyone makes a fuss over Nike “unveiling” the “new” uniforms for the four teams — which aren’t really new and don’t even make sense because two of the teams will be wearing white, so why show us their colored jerseys? (Wait, let me guess.) One of those teams is Ohio State. Everyone’s saying, “Oooh, ahhh, it’s the same jersey with the black TV numbers that they wore against Michigan.” Yes, but they can’t wear it in the first playoff round against Clemson because they’re going to be the visiting team and will therefore be wearing white. Word I’m hearing is that they’ll be going with this design, which they wore in the 2015 Sugar Bowl.

For those who like to keep track of such things, Alabama, Ohio State, and Clemson will be wearing the new Nike template with the embarrassing name that I can’t bring myself to spell out, while Washington will be wearing the old Nike template with the other embarrassing name that I can’t bring myself to spell out.

Finally, speaking of Ohio State, here’s a non-uni-related footnote: The Tugboat Captain’s new roommate is a high school English teacher here in Brooklyn, and she taught OSU running back Curtis Samuel. Says he’s a nice young man.

• • • • •

T-Shirt Club reminder: In case you missed it last week, the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s final design of 2016 is now available for ordering. The design is a mash-up of uniform elements from all of our previous 2016 shirts (click to enlarge):

The only new element is the baseball cap (which didn’t appear on our baseball-themed shirt because the player was wearing a batting helmet). It’s comes in four color options — our usual grey, black, green, plus a new “military green” (that’s what the manufacturer calls it, although I’d just call it light olive) — and is also available with either short or long sleeves.

The shirt will be available through this Friday. The shirts are due to ship right after Christmas, so they should arrive in time for you to wear them on New Year’s Eve. (I had hoped to have them delivered in time for Christmas, but it just wasn’t possible to get things finalized in time for that. Sorry.)

If you’ve ordered all five of this year’s previous shirts and also get this one, you’ll be eligible for our year-end “Collect ’Em All” prize, which will be a patch based on the jock tag design used on this year’s shirts. To qualify, please send me proof that you’ve bought all six shirts. The proof can either be (a) a photo showing all the shirts or (b) screen shots of the “Thank you for your order” emails you received from Teespring and Represent.

Grab Bag: This Chicago Cubs World Series commemorative bat doesn’t include Wrigley Field’s new video boards (from Jack). … Whoops. Penn State wrestling had a few errors on its ticket to its match against Lehigh: The ticket calls the match a football game, and says it takes place in Beaver Stadium. (from Chris Flinn).

Well — the “regular” season wrapped up (well, except for that Army/Navy tilt next weekend) yesterday, with lots of Conference FBS Championships for the Power Five Four (sorry Big XII, maybe next year) as well as the other conferences, leaving just the A/N jaunt before we . . . → Read More: Sunday Morning Uni Watch]]>

By Phil Hecken & The SMUW Crew

Well — the “regular” season wrapped up (well, except for that Army/Navy tilt next weekend) yesterday, with lots of Conference FBS Championships for the Power Five Four (sorry Big XII, maybe next year) as well as the other conferences, leaving just the A/N jaunt before we kick off bowl season. Of those games, most were pretty good looking (though my 5 & 1 guy will probably disagree), and any time you have Alabama, Penn State, Clemson, Wisconsin (and I’ll throw in Oklahoma, even though they were merely in Bedlam) playing on a featured Saturday…you’re going to get some good unis and some good matchups.

Long time readers of this blog probably know I LOVE Alabama’s unis, which are my favorite in all of college football. I’m sure this is partly influenced by the fact that my High School Alma Mater basically looks like Alabama, and they’ve dressed like that since long before I graduated from there in 1984. While Alabama is crimson, GCHS colors are maroon and gray…but the unis are even close in color. Both schools have NNOB, one helmet, one home jersey and white pants worn for home and road. There are no alternates, no camopander, they don’t even do the pinktober shtick. It’s beautiful. Simple and classic.

That’s not to say there is no place for wild and crazy unis — I just happen to like the classics, and Alabama looked much the same when Joe Wille played there. Consistency over the decades, especially in the face of the increasing influence of Big Uni and the lifestyle brands should be something we admire. Leave the fancy unis to Oregon and Maryland and schools like that. But lets keep ‘bama and PSU in their simple unis for a while longer, shall we?

Here’s TJ with your…

.. .. .. ..

Sunday Morning Uni WatchBy Terry Duroncelet, Jr.

As December is wont to do, Championship Week brings the initial chilling winds signifying the end of the college football regular season (with next week’s annual Army/Navy game being that satisfying Christmas spirit blizzard), and as you would expect, there was minimal activity, but I did manage to pad out some bits from what few games there were over the weekend…

From Friday:

• Not everyone can keep up with all the semantics of every team’s season, so imagine my surprise to find that Western Michigan was ranked #17 in the nation (12-0 as I write this). Now imagine if the Broncos looked as good as they’re playing this season… yeah, a real pipe dream. It’s like Western Michigan is actively trying to be the living symbol of what not to do when filling in your order on the Adidas Uniform Builder. Let’s break it down: non-tackle twill jersey numbers, school name, and player names? Check. GFGS? Check. Contrast side panels? Check (although they at least follow the side panels on the pants, unlike what the Bills wore for south of a decade). Some weird sublimated graphic that seems bears an iota of camouflage? Check. Grey decals on a brown shell, thus giving the color brown an even worse (and if you ask me, undeserved) reputation? Check. I almost prefer the brown and white uniforms from a few years back, even if the subtraction of gold led to some rather… unfortunate comparisons (draw your own conclusions as to what I’m referencing). The Ohio Bobcats weren’t much better, either. They could’ve been the equalizer to the Broncos, but that would actually make sense, now wouldn’t it? Even the Mothership was having a rough night. Look at the scoreboard at the lower righthand corner: Western Michigan is depicted in black, and Ohio in green, with neither teams wearing either of their respective colors (with credit to Grimmetal Ute).

• Decent contrast in Friday night’s PAC 12 Championship game between Washington and Colorado, but what the hell is up with the 76 gas station logo? Clearly, they’re the sponsor for the game, but the logo looks like it was COMICALLY slapped on there literally two hours before the players hit the field for warmups as an afterthought. Hell, look what I did in GIMP in like, one minute.

From Saturday:

• Louisiana-Monroe wore S&S decals in their game against Louisiana-Lafayette (closer look), and they also wore ’48’ on the back of their helmets, in honor of Louis Blanchard, a Louisiana high school football standout who passed away last week. Louisiana-Monroe was one of the schools recruiting him, and he committed to the school just days before suffering a neck injury that would later prove to be fatal.

• So, the cups from the SEC Championship game seemed to have had a strange glitch with the blue (official SEC colors are blue and gold), so it kind of gave the impression that SEC HQ was located in Baton Rouge. Here’s another pic for comparison. I’m thinking it’s early-onset light exposure (credit to Griffin Smith for both of the cup pics). In non-LSU news: Florida wore full-orange against Alabama. Something I wondered for a little while was why Bama was wearing white and Florida in colors, despite Bama being the higher-ranked team. Turns out that the divisions alternate every year. Case-in-point: last year’s SEC Championship game was also Alabama/Florida, and the Crimson Tide wore their usual home uniforms. Lastly, the SEC Championship celebrated its 25th contest, and both teams wore new helmet decals for the occasion. Befitting, since these two were the first ones to compete in the inaugural game in 1992, have played against each other in 4 of the last 9 (2008, 2009, 2015, 2016), and are responsible for 9 of the 25 games (1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2008, 2009, 2015, 2016).

• As far as uni designations go, this also applies to the B1G Championship, as Wisconsin (#6 going into yesterday) wore all-white against Penn State (#7). Here’s last year’s tilt between #4 Iowa and #5 Michigan State for comparison.

And THAT… will do it for Week 14. Another regular season in the books, and with that, I hide away until bowl season. Until then, catch you next time.

.. .. .. ..

Thanks, TJ! And thanks again for another great regular season.

TJ, as well as our 5 & 1 picker Joe Ringham, and the Power 5 trackers (Rex, Dennis, Ethan and Kyle) will all be back at some point (I’m hoping to have some special content from them as well) once the Bowls are in full swing. But they can all take some deep breaths and relax for a few weeks, at least (some longer than that).

I can’t thank all these guys enough — not only producing great content for every Sunday, but doing it under my somewhat tight deadlines, and they’ve not only come through with flying colors every week, but absolutely knocked it out of the park (if you’ll pardon the baseball analogy) every time!

Please take a minute in the comments below to thank them all for another great regular season!!!

And with that…the rest of the SMUW.

Joe Ringham’s 5 & 1

Following in the footsteps of the original “5 & 1,” Jim Vilk, and Catherine Ryan after him, Joe Ringham is back for 2016 to make his “5 & 1” (five good looking and one stinker) uni-vs-uni matchups. Sometimes he’ll have some “honorable mentions” and sometimes there will be more than one “bad” game. You may agree and you may disagree — these are, after all, just opinions and everyone has one. Feel free to let him know what you think in the comments section.

Here’s Joe:

. . .

Happy Sunday, everyone! Final edition of the 5 & 1 for the regular season, with obvious slim pickings because of it being Championship Saturday. So, let’s get right to the list, shall we?

5) MAC Championship: Western Michigan vs Ohio — At first, I wasn’t too fond of this match-up. But this really grew on me, after looking at it again. Ohio’s mono-black set actually didn’t look too bad, with all the green trim making it look decent. You pair that up against the Broncos’ brown/gray/gray, and it really does look pretty good.

2) Mountain West Championship: San Diego State vs Wyoming — I flipped to this game, just out of the blue, and was stunned by how great this one looked. The Aztecs looked fantastic in their road red/white/black set, always a fine look for them. The Cowboys matched that up with their white/brown/yellow home set to make this look very visually appealing.

1) American Championship: Temple vs Navy — I started watching this game around lunchtime and immediately knew this would be tough to beat. The Owls looked incredibly sharp in their maroon/white/maroon road unis. That look matched up perfectly against the gold/navy/gold of the Middies. One incredibly superb looking game to help close out the regular season.

And, finally…

+1) SEC Championship: Alabama vs Florida — This had potential to be on the good side… until the Gators showed up in mono-orange. You deserve to get beat down like that when you put on a uniform combo like that.

That will do it for me for the regular season. I’ll be back again during the bowl season for TWO bowl editions, so be on the look-out for that. Until then…

NCAA Uni Tracking

Uni Watch will again track the uniform combinations worn by the “Power 5” conferences. Most of the 2015 trackers are back, with one new tracker added:

We’ve got Rex Henry (tracking the ACC), Dennis Bolt (tracking the PAC-12), Kyle Acker (tracking the Big XII), and Ethan Dimitroff (now tracking the B1G AND the SEC). Rex, Dennis, and Kyle and are all returning from 2015, and Ethan is new to the NCAA Uni Tracking this season. Ethan has stepped into the dual role (thanks, man!) of both the B1G and the SEC after one of my previous trackers could no longer provide the B1G.

In case you missed it on Friday, hundreds of NFL players will be wearing custom-designed cleats to support various nonprofit foundations and other charitable causes this Sunday. Paul had hoped to have an ESPN column about some of the people who actually designed and painted some of those cleats, but some very annoying circumstances conspired to make that impossible. So instead he still has a great piece in which he showcases some of the more notable designs (like these seen here).

T-Shirt Club reminder: Paul here. In case you missed it a few days ago, the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s final design of 2016 is now available for ordering. The design is a mash-up of uniform elements from all of our previous 2016 shirts (click to enlarge):

The only new element is the baseball cap (which didn’t appear on our baseball-themed shirt because the player was wearing a batting helmet). It’s comes in four color options — our usual grey, black, green, plus a new “military green” (that’s what the manufacturer calls it, although I’d just call it light olive) — and is also available with either short or long sleeves.

The shirt will be available through next Friday, Dec. 9. The shirts are due to ship right after Christmas, so they should arrive in time for you to wear them on New Year’s Eve. (I had hoped to have them delivered in time for Christmas, but it just wasn’t possible to get things finalized in time for that. Sorry.)

If you’ve ordered all five of this year’s previous shirts and also get this one, you’ll be eligible for our year-end “Collect ’Em All” prize, which will be a patch based on the jock tag design used on this year’s shirts. To qualify, please send me proof that you’ve bought all six shirts. The proof can either be (a) a photo showing all the shirts or (b) screen shots of the “Thank you for your order” emails you received from Teespring and Represent.

This is our final shirt of the year. Will we do the T-Shirt Club again next year? I’m not sure. I’d definitely like to do some more shirts, but maybe in a more random, less programmatic way. We’ll see.

Uni Watch News TickerBy Phil

Baseball News: Interesting uni news is revealed in this article, some of which we already knew. If you scroll down, you’ll see “Clubhouse manager Tony Amato said the Indians won’t have an alternative jersey until 2018 after retiring the cream jerseys last season. They will, however, retain the red caps from the cream uniforms and wear them with their blue tops at home in 2017.” (from #RallyTogether). Interesting — as we all know, the blue cap had “Wahoo” while the red cap has the Block C. Slowly but surely, it looks like Wahoo is making a quiet departure from the unis. … We all know a hot dog is not a sandwich, even when it’s depicted in the hands of a vendor on a MiLB Cap. That’s the Reading Fightin’s cap, and you can get one if you like (from Thom Pucks). … In yesterday’s ticker I had an item featuring a photo of a Cubs World Series patch with a “CHAMPIONS” patch underneath. Apparently, this is a thing (from Titan4Ever2448). … From Bruce Menard check out this beautiful rare 1930’s St. Louis Cardinals cast-iron paperweight. … We may have seen this before, but once more couldn’t hurt: Ron Jackson wearing a Full Name on Back (pic from Super 70s Sports, via Brian Flemming).

NFL/CFL News: On Friday, Vince Wilfork and Jadeveon Clowney switched jerseys at practice and the result was hilarious. … Reader Tom M. noticed “Bills lineman Jordan Mills has his running buffalo missing from his jersey this week.” Guessing by “this week” he means last Sunday. … Apropos of absolutely nothing, here’s a nice shot of Bart Starr sporting long sleeves (from Mark Murdoch). … Our pal Wafflebored noticed this jersey mistake. What’s wrong, you say? “This 6 is actually a 9. The stripes should be on the bottom for both numbers.”

College/High School Football News: Reader Tim Dunn points out that there is a High School team with a native American mascot (Brave) that just won its championship. … Before Bedlam yesterday, Southwest Airlines did an unusual flyover in “memory” of Mike Winchester, who was a punter for the Sooners who lettered from 1984 through 1986 and was a member of OU’s 1985 national championship team, and was killed Nov. 15 outside Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport, where he worked for Southwest Airlines for 29 years. … Here’s an interesting “take” on Notre Dame. Submitter THE Andreas A Schmid says, “Bet they’d win more than 5 games a season.” … Navy (and Army) will both likely have new costumes for their big game next weekend. I have no confirmation, but it’s possible this is the jersey Navy will wear (from Nick). … Tweeter Jordan Daniels says “picture from 1992 SEC champ footage — forget stirrups we need more sock numbers.” … Oh. My. God. Has no one noticed until now that the helmets in the KFC commercials are actually a bucket of chicken????? (from Eric Gamborg). … I have no words for these uniforms (well, I do, and they start with the initals “W” “T” and “F”). From William..

I know I thank them every week, but please join in in giving some extra special props to the entire Sunday Morning Uni Watch Crew: Terry, Joe, Rex, Dennis, Kyle & Ethan. These guys are incredibly devoted and awesome at what they do — I couldn’t even come close to providing this kind of College Football coverage without them! While this is *technically* the last Sunday Morning Uni Watch of the season where all their individual contributions make up the sum of the post, I’ll have all of them back before the season ends with wrap-ups, bowl coverage and more, and possibly feature some of their own efforts on other projects! Stay tuned.

Everyone have a good Sunday (wake me up when December ends) — I expect Navy and Army (the only game in town next weekend) will have some kind of special costumes next weekend…so there’s always that.

If you missed it yesterday, I am looking for nominations for the worst uniforms of the 2010s (details in that post). Got several submissions yesterday, but I can always use more nominations. Keep ’em coming!!! See ya next weekend, but until then…

“He says a hot dog isn’t a sandwich. He follows it up by saying a hamburger isn’t a sandwich. Thus proving… a hot dog is indeed sandwich. He probably thinks the pot isn’t black, and the kettle isn’t either.”

]]>http://www.uni-watch.com/2016/12/04/sunday-morning-uni-watch-73/feed/30Let’s Revisit This — What Are The Worst Unis of the 2010s?http://www.uni-watch.com/2016/12/03/lets-revisit-this-what-are-the-worst-unis-of-the-2010s/
http://www.uni-watch.com/2016/12/03/lets-revisit-this-what-are-the-worst-unis-of-the-2010s/#commentsSat, 03 Dec 2016 12:50:03 +0000http://www.uni-watch.com/?p=79648Click to enlarge

By Phil Hecken

Waaaaaaaay back in 2009, my buddy Jimbo Huening helped me out with a project that involved the participation of the Uni Watch readership, in which we sought to determine the worst uniform ever (which Paul picked up over on ESPN. Your finalists were here. That contest asked for . . . → Read More: Let’s Revisit This — What Are The Worst Unis of the 2010s?]]>

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By Phil Hecken

Waaaaaaaay back in 2009, my buddy Jimbo Huening helped me out with a project that involved the participation of the Uni Watch readership, in which we sought to determine the worst uniform ever (which Paul picked up over on ESPN. Your finalists were here. That contest asked for submissions from you guys, and looked for the worst uniforms across the uni-spectrum. In perhaps not a shock, the readership determined the worst uni was that worn by the Caribous of Colorado (a look that was ‘lovingly’ brought back by the Colorado Rapids a few years ago).

If you look back at the nominees link, you’ll note there were a lot of categories: the major sports, plus Hockey, Short-lived unis, Soccer, College Football and Basketball, and Miscellaneous pro football (XFL, NFL Europe, WFL, etc.). I’d like to revisit this again, but let’s lessen the categories (perhaps adding sub-categories: alternates, one-offs, special/holiday unis) and timeframe: this time around, I’d like for you guys to submit to me your worst uniform nominees for 2010-2016 in just six categories:

MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS and NCAAFB.

In the comments, or in an e-mail to me (subject: “Worst uni nominee”) or in a tweet (hashtag #worstuni), I’ll ask you for your submissions. If possible, please include a photo and the year(s) worn — remember, I’m looking for uniforms from 2010 to 2016.

.. .. .. ..

Major League Baseball

Baseball might seem like a slam dunk for the Diamondbacks (but which one of their 7 combos?), but over the past seven years there have been a bunch of stinkers (or beauties, depending on your perspective) worn in baseball. Whether it’s the awful camo-pander some teams went with, or some eye-searing throwbacks, there have been a bunch of awful uniforms worn this decade. And of course some teams just have bad regular uniforms, but it will be hard to top the 2016 Diamondbacks in that category. Let’s get some nominees.

I’d argue that NBA uniforms have gotten better over the years, and some of the looks in the league are as good now as they have ever been. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t seen our share of turds in the past seven years, including the Hawks we-forgot-our-regular-pants look above (Jim Vilk will disagree with me vehemently on this one). And if that unmatched set isn’t your cuppa, don’t forget the Hickory High School fauxbacks the Pacers sported. But don’t forget the Chinese New Year unis or the Christmas Day tee shirts that have been thrown into the mix. We can also throw the ASG unis in there too. Give me some good nominations, please.

.. .. .. ..

National Hockey League

Like the NBA, the NHL seems to have gotten its act together, uni-wise, in the past few years, but they’ve still produced a bunch of bad unis, so we’ve got plenty to choose from here too — including the Buffalo Sabres gold front/navy back numbers above. But don’t forget the Barber Poles (I say these count since they were worn during the 2009-10 season), those really shiny Stadium Series numbers, or perhaps you don’t like stripes. Maybe not as many good choices here as if we could bring the ’90s and aughts into the equation, but still…there are some bad unis out there. Let’s have your sections.

Clearly, this will give us the most choices (since there are so many NCAAFB teams, and they all seem to have so many unis); I’m thinking this may need to have some sub categories, but for now, I just want you guys to let me know the worst ones, whether they be “regular” unis, “tribute” unis, alternate atrocities or Bowl unis turned regular unis. There are literally thousands of choices here. Choose well.

.. .. .. ..

OK there you have it — the categories — just submit your choices to me, either via the comments section below (again, try to have a photo and year), or to my e-mail or tweet at me. I’ll compile the best nominees (perhaps running it via a select sub-committee) and we’ll have some voting on these in the coming weeks. The voting will likely focus on one discipline at a time, and possibly be as sub-ledes, depending on content. OK? OK.

Get crackin’!

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UW’s Friday Flashback

In case you missed it on Friday, hundreds of NFL players will be wearing custom-designed cleats to support various nonprofit foundations and other charitable causes this Sunday. Paul had hoped to have an ESPN column about some of the people who actually designed and painted some of those cleats, but some very annoying circumstances conspired to make that impossible. So instead he still has a great piece in which he showcases some of the more notable designs (like these seen here).

T-Shirt Club reminder: Paul here. In case you missed it a few days ago, the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s final design of 2016 is now available for ordering. The design is a mash-up of uniform elements from all of our previous 2016 shirts (click to enlarge):

The only new element is the baseball cap (which didn’t appear on our baseball-themed shirt because the player was wearing a batting helmet). It’s comes in four color options — our usual grey, black, green, plus a new “military green” (that’s what the manufacturer calls it, although I’d just call it light olive) — and is also available with either short or long sleeves.

The shirt will be available through next Friday, Dec. 9. The shirts are due to ship right after Christmas, so they should arrive in time for you to wear them on New Year’s Eve. (I had hoped to have them delivered in time for Christmas, but it just wasn’t possible to get things finalized in time for that. Sorry.)

If you’ve ordered all five of this year’s previous shirts and also get this one, you’ll be eligible for our year-end “Collect ’Em All” prize, which will be a patch based on the jock tag design used on this year’s shirts. To qualify, please send me proof that you’ve bought all six shirts. The proof can either be (a) a photo showing all the shirts or (b) screen shots of the “Thank you for your order” emails you received from Teespring and Represent.

This is our final shirt of the year. Will we do the T-Shirt Club again next year? I’m not sure. I’d definitely like to do some more shirts, but maybe in a more random, less programmatic way. We’ll see.

NFL News: This is interesting: ” I ordered a customized Tervis Tumbler on Monday,” says Joseph Bailey. “I sent in a photo of an old school Browns logo (from a bumper sticker I own). Sadly, they won’t make it for me. They have a contract with the NFL, but they don’t use old logos. I had hoped to get this. Sadly, they won’t allow it.” That’s sad. … People tend to forget just how red the reddish-orange pants sported at one time by the Denver Broncos were (photo from Sports Paper). And it’s not just the photo — the orange worn by the Bengals in that photo is pretty…orange. … The cool cleats you’ve seen in the NFL? The epicenter of the trend is a store in the Walden Galleria. … Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham, Jr. will be wearing these sweet soled shoes for the “Make A Wish” foundation in Sunday’s #MyCauseMyCleats game (from Megan Brown). … Now that the Seattle Sounders’ season has ended, the endzones at Century Link Field are Seahawks blue (they do this every year, and I love it — kinda like the Raiders playing on a dirt infield or other old-school, early-season quirks). From Chris Englund.

College/High School Football News: I’m always curious why helmet logo stickers come loose. Is it more of a factor of the weather than anything? Seems like we seem them more when the weather gets colder, but clearly they happen in all weather. In that vein, Ty Chandler from MBA in Nashville, TN had a bit of a helmet logo issue during the DII State Championship game Thursday night (from Anthony Shiffman). Google tells me the high was 53 and the low was 35 there yesterday, so it doesn’t *seem* like cold was the issue. … Would you buy a custom jersey for a player who never attended the University that is selling it? Well, if you’re a LeBron James fan, you might. … Someone has gone to the trouble of ranking Kansas’ uniforms for games seven through 12 of this year. With the exception of the “Limestone Throwbacks”, they’re all awful. … Almost as bad (and it’s worse if you include quantity over quality) is this article which ranks ALL 12 Syracuse uni combos for the 2016 season (from Bryan Prouse). … The B1G Championship is tonight in Indianapolis, so the Indy Cars at the Indy Motor Speedway were decked out in Nits & Badgers colors/logos (from Charles Weiss). … The MAC Championship was played last night — Terry will have more on the unis in SMUW tomorrow — but neither team wore school colors and the endzones were also in neither team’s colors (from Paul Braverman).

NBA News: “Do you know who won a championship ring with the Lakers as a player and then played for the NFL Eagles 2 years later?” asks Douglas Ford. “Badass Bud F-ing Grant, that’s who! Behold Bud in his awesome striped tube socks rocking the #20 uniform! (since the picture is B&W you won’t have to suffer through any purple). Bud, of course, became an HOF coach in both the CFL and NFL.” … Are Disney’s CGI guys subliminally inserting NBA logos into their movies??? (interesting observation from thA Pandabear).

Grab Bag: Chicago Cardinal (Catholic leader, not football player) has an updated coat of arms, notes Kenneth Traisman, who adds, “Blase Cupich was recently elevated to Cardinal by Pope Francis.” … I didn’t realize this until Steve Johnston sent this item in, but the attack on Pearl Harbor is celebrating a special anniversary this year: “Came across this logo via a my town’s newsletter. Checked and there is an official website that also includes it. … According to the National Lacrosse League, “A HISTORIC moment in #NLLHistory will take place on 12/17!” They’ll reveal a new logo (from Griffin Smith). … From reader Scott Stoddard we have this “Epic vintage curling sweater.” Scott adds, “It sounds like the seller has no idea about the motif. No mention of curling in the title or description.” … American Airlines rolled out new uniforms to more than 70,000 of its frontline workers in September. The appearance of the uniforms was well-received, but now American’s flight attendants union is calling for a total recall after saying the outfits have sickened more than 1,000 workers, after complaints about itching, rashes, headaches and hives surfaced within the first few weeks of the uniform roll-out (from Brinke). … Did you ever wish a thread existed on a message board where the best track uniforms were discussed? Me neither, but here ya go anyway (from Alex Harris).

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And that will do it for today. Hope everyone has a great Saturday — lots of big NCAA football games throughout the day to enjoy, as the regular season begins to wind down. I’ll be back one more time with the Sunday Morning Uni Watch crew (as a unit — but we’ll still have contributions from them throughout he remainder of the season).

As I watched last night’s Cowboys/Vikings game, a thought occurred to me: Players in monochromatic look smaller, at least to me. Smaller and narrower. I’m not sure why this is — maybe because the solid-colored uni looks sleeker and more streamlined? — but it’s something I’ve . . . → Read More: Do Mono-Colored Uniforms Look Smaller?]]>

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As I watched last night’s Cowboys/Vikings game, a thought occurred to me: Players in monochromatic look smaller, at least to me. Smaller and narrower. I’m not sure why this is — maybe because the solid-colored uni looks sleeker and more streamlined? — but it’s something I’ve instinctively thought for many years but have never fully articulated, even to myself, until now. It doesn’t matter if the uniform is mono-white, mono-purple (ewww), or mono-anything else — the players just look smaller, like they’re little video game figures.

Does anyone else experience the same visual effect?

• • • • •

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Do-gooder footwear bonanza: As you’re no doubt aware by now, hundreds of NFL players will be wearing custom-designed cleats to support various nonprofit foundations and other charitable causes this Sunday. I had hoped to have an ESPN column today about some of the people who actually designed and painted some of those cleats, but some very annoying circumstances conspired to make that impossible. So instead I’ll have a piece in which I showcase some of the more notable designs (which is, you know, what pretty much every other sports media outlet is doing, which is why I wanted to do the other piece about the people who created the designs, but that didn’t work out, grrrrr). Check it out here.

Actually, there is a story I can tell you — or at least link to — about someone who designed some of the cleats: The participating players on the Raiders had their custom footwear designed and painted by the team’s longtime equipment manager, Bobby Romanski, who’s also an artist. There’s a really good article and video about him here. Highly recommended.

Romanski has been the Raiders’ equipment guy for over 20 years, but I confess that I’ve never been aware of his name. He comes off as a really interesting guy — thoughtful, soft-spoken, humble. And an artist to boot! Good for him.

• • • • •

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Pack straps, continued: In response to yesterday’s entry about Packers quarterbacks Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and Brett Hundley all wearing the same old-school two-point chinstrap, Twitter user @Kodison12 informed me that the trend goes beyond those three players. At least three additional Packers signal-callers — Graham Harrell, Craig Nall, and Joe Callahan (all shown above, from left to right) — have worn the same antiquated strap in recent years. And then reader/commenter Randy pointed out that yet another recent Green Bay quarterback has worn that strap: B.J. Coleman. So that makes at least seven Packers wearing this strap, during a period in which almost nobody else in the league has worn it.

It’s worth noting that a few other recent Green Bay quarterbacks have used the more conventional four-point strap, including Matt Flynn, Scott Tolzien, and Seneca Wallace, so the old-school two-pointer hasn’t been a universal Packers thing. But it’s still definitely a Packers thing.

Unfortunately, my request to discuss all of this with equipment manager Red Batty was turned down (the team doesn’t make its support staff available to the media). But I’ve asked the PR to see if they can get some info from Batty to pass along to me. Still waiting on that. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, it’s entirely possible that there are punters and kickers out there who wear the old two-point rig — I haven’t done a close inventory on them. And readers wasted no time in finding just such a player in last night’s game: Vikings kicker Kai Forbath.

• • • • •

Footage from the vaults: Reader John McMunn recently came across the video shown above, which features game highlights from Weeks 1 and 6 of the 1954 NFL season. I’ll let John take it from here:

Of note is that in Week 1, the Bears/Lions and 49ers/Redskins games were color on color. So was the 49ers/Bears game in Week 6. That same week, the Eagles and Packers played a night game that was color on color. One of the neat features was the use of a white football for the night game.

Also: Despite warm weather in Week 1, the players’ jerseys had long sleeves.

One other note is that all the officials are wearing white caps, unlike today when only the referee wears white and the rest of the crew wears black.

• • • • •

T-Shirt Club reminder: In case you missed it yesterday, the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s final design of 2016 is now available for ordering. The design is a mash-up of uniform elements from all of our previous 2016 shirts (click to enlarge):

The only new element is the baseball cap (which didn’t appear on our baseball-themed shirt because the player was wearing a batting helmet). It’s comes in four color options — our usual grey, black, green, plus a new “military green” (that’s what the manufacturer calls it, although I’d just call it light olive) — and is also available with either short or long sleeves.

One note: Yesterday a few people said they thought the guy in the photo was wearing a left sneaker on his right foot, and maybe a right cleat on his left foot. There’s a story behind that (not worth explaining, trust me), but I could see what people meant, so we’ve adjust the footwear like so — old version on the left, new on the right:

The shirt will be available through next Friday, Dec. 9. The shirts are due to ship right after Christmas, so they should arrive in time for you to wear them on New Year’s Eve. (I had hoped to have them delivered in time for Christmas, but it just wasn’t possible to get things finalized in time for that. Sorry.)

If you’ve ordered all five of this year’s previous shirts and also get this one, you’ll be eligible for our year-end “Collect ’Em All” prize, which will be a patch based on the jock tag design used on this year’s shirts. To qualify, please send me proof that you’ve bought all six shirts. The proof can either be (a) a photo showing all the shirts or (b) screen shots of the “Thank you for your order” emails you received from Teespring and Represent.

This is our final shirt of the year. Will we do the T-Shirt Club again next year? I’m not sure. I’d definitely like to do some more shirts, but maybe in a more random, less programmatic way. We’ll see.

NFL News: Here’s a place where I’ve never seen the Jags’ original phantom logo before: on a tree ornament. … Dallas QB Dak Prescott suffered a torn jersey last night. Then it got worse, and they stitch it up later (screen shots by Joey Breeland and Zak Meyer). … Cowboys DE David Irving wore the wrong (i.e., right) socks last night. And if you look in the background of that photo, you can see that someone in the secondary was doing likewise (from Jonathan Dodd). … Former Vikes coach Bud Grant was at the game last night and was wearing an NFL helmet necktie (from Chris Rabalais).

College Football News: Here’s Clemson’s jersey patch for the ACC championship game (from Mark Johnson). … In that same game, Virginia Tech will go mono-maroon (from Andrew Cosentino). … Looks like Ohio will be wearing matte black helmets for the MAC championship. … According to a note roughly midway through this story, Purdue players warmed up in black jerseys before the 1986 Old Oaken Bucket Game against Indiana and then returned to the locker room to find gold jerseys waiting for them, which apparently got the team all excited. “We’ve heard similar stories before, but it goes to show the influence of retail jerseys,” says Aaron Parish. “Could you imagine any surprise switch like that today? It would be announced way in advance and have a big ‘story’ behind it.”

NBA News: LeBron James, having lost a bet on the World Series, will be wearing a Cubs uniform when the Cavs arrive to play the Bulls in Chicago today (thanks, Mike). … Brook Lopez of the Nets wore a Craig Sager tribute warm-up top prior to last night’s game against the Bucks (from Mike Horowitz). … This is pretty amazing: World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen was wearing NBA socks during his recent match against challenger Sergey Karjakin the other day. Wonder if he’s actually an NBA fan or if someone paid him to wear the hose (from Jay Bracken).

Grab Bag: MLB destroyed the Indians’ championship merch, but Hillary Clinton victory merch is still being sold, albeit at a discount. “I guess it’d be weird to send something like that to needy countries,” says ‏@callmew1lly. … The federal Dept. of Transportation says hundreds of signs promoting tourism on highways throughout New York State are illegal, because they’re so big and info-packed that they pose a distraction hazard. … Nike is trying to bypass retailers by selling more items directly to consumers. … The son of a Texas police officer who was killed in the line of duty was given teddy bears made from his father’s uniforms. … Jared Law notes that all-star game logos for assorted sports and leagues usually have one thing in common: they use a star in place of the hyphen in “All-Star.” Has this become such an established trope that it’s essentially an imperative? If an all-star logo used a conventional hyphen instead of a star, would that be a design sin? Discuss. … Monster recently signed an endorsement deal with Tiger Woods, but don’t expect them to do similar deals with other golfers (thanks, Brinke). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: If we ever add more states to the union, how will we add stars to the American flag? Here’s a good exploration of that topic, including this amazing flag-builder app (with big thanks to R. Scott Rogers):

You probably recognize at least two of the players in the photos shown at right (which you can click to enlarge). From top to bottom, they are former Packers quarterback Brett Favre, current Packers starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and current Packers backup quarterback Brett Hundley.

You probably recognize at least two of the players in the photos shown at right (which you can click to enlarge). From top to bottom, they are former Packers quarterback Brett Favre, current Packers starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and current Packers backup quarterback Brett Hundley.

Notice anything odd that all three players share? Answer: They’re all wearing two-point chinstraps. And not just any two-pointers, but the old-style straps with the flexible chin cup that’s ridged on the outside and felt-lined on the inside. That design is such an old-school signifier that we even used it for the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s recent football design.

Leaving aside kickers and punters (I haven’t had time to check all of their chinstraps), nobody wears this kind of old-school strap anymore — except for Packers quarterbacks. Hmmmm.

It’s one thing for Favre and Rodgers to wear the same strap, but Hundley really makes it a trend, right? I can’t take credit for noticing that — it was pointed out to me by reader Stephen Scheffel, who’s apparently something of a chinstrap-whisperer. He says the only other player he’s seen wearing this kind of strap in recent years is Kyle Orton, who retired after the 2014 season.

Scheffel also notes that the Green Bay quarterbacking troika all wore different straps before joining the Packers. Let’s look at them one at a time:

• Favre usually wore a four-point strap while playing at Southern Miss and maintained that style while beginning his NFL career with the Falcons. He stuck with the four-point setup when he joined the Packers in 1992 but had switched to the old-school two-pointer by 1993. He stuck with the old-fashioned strap during his stints with the Jets and Vikings.

• Rodgers’s chinstrap trajectory has followed a similar arc as Favre’s. He was a four-pointer in college at Cal and stuck with the four-point style during his 2005 Packers rookie season before switching to the old-school two-pointer in 2006. To my knowledge, he’s stuck with that style throughout the past decade.

• Hundley, like Favre and Rodgers, was a four-pointer in college. But he switched to the old-school two-point strap for his first Packers minicamp after being chosen in the 2015 NFL Draft, and has stuck with that style since then.

Interesting, right? Does Packers equipment manager Red Batty have a thing for this kind of strap? I’ve asked the Packers and am waiting to hear back — stay tuned.

Meanwhile, if you want your own old-school two-point chinstrap, they’re available for $18 apiece from Gridiron Memories.

• • • • •

Gift Guide reminder: In case you missed it yesterday, my annual Uni Watch Holiday Gift Guide is now available for your shopping enjoyment.

• • • • •

T-Shirt Club Update: I’m happy to announce that the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s final design of 2016 is now available for ordering. Many of you have been curious about what the design theme would be for this one — curling? rugby? cricket? — and I confess I’m a bit surprised that nobody came up with the right answer (click to enlarge):

As you can see, it’s a mash-up of elements from all of our previous 2016 jerseys. The only new element is the baseball cap (which didn’t appear on our baseball-themed shirt because the player was wearing a batting helmet). It’s comes in four color options — our usual grey, black, green, plus a new “military green” (that’s what the manufacturer calls it, although I’d just call it light olive) — and is also available with either short or long sleeves.

The shirt will be available through next Friday, Dec. 9. The shirts are due to ship right after Christmas, so they should arrive in time for you to wear them on New Year’s Eve. (I had hoped to have them delivered in time for Christmas, but it just wasn’t possible to get things finalized in time for that. Sorry.)

If you’ve ordered all five of this year’s previous shirts and also get this one, you’ll be eligible for our year-end “Collect ’Em All” prize, which will be a patch based on the jock tag design used on this year’s shirts. To qualify, please send me proof that you’ve bought all six shirts. The proof can either be (a) a photo showing all the shirts or (b) screen shots of the “Thank you for your order” emails you received from Teespring and Represent.

This is our final shirt of the year. Will we do the T-Shirt Club again next year? I’m not sure. I’d definitely like to do some more shirts, but maybe in a more random, less programmatic way. We’ll see.

Baseball News: If you look at the “Score-Board” column on this 1941 newspaper page, you’ll see commentary on the Pirates’ uniforms in the first graf and info on the Cubs’ unis in the last graf. Interesting that the writer at one point refers to the Cubs as the Bruins — bruins are bears, of course, but I’d never seen that shorthand used for the Cubbies (from Jerry Wolper). … An Illinois chef has celebrated the Cubs’ title by making a 400-lb gingerbread replica of Wrigley Field (thanks, Mike). … No surprise here: Padres owner Peter Seidler says he doesn’t care much about uniforms. … In a related item, the Hall of Fame has this 1985 Padres prototype cap in its archives. Paul Lee and Todd Radom both say it was meant to go with this prototype jersey, which I don’t understand, because the jersey is trimmed in orange while the cap logo is yellow. “Things were not always so slavishly matched back then,” says Todd. … A pop-up Dodgers museum will open at Dodger Stadium tomorrow (thanks, Mike). … At yesterday’s press conference announcing that Yoenis Céspedes had re-signed with the Mets, GM Sandy Alderson presented Céspedes with a cap that was blissfully free of New Era logo creep. “Too bad he’ll never wear that in-game anymore,” says Niko G.

NFL News: Good news out of New Orleans, where the Saints announced that they’ll be wearing throwbacks this Sunday. … The Vkings’ Thursday-night jersey, which will be worn for tonight’s game against the Cowboys, has “Skol Vikings” — the title of the team’s official fight song — on the inner collar. Here’s a comparison showing the regular jersey on the left, tonight’s on the right (from Joshua Kramer). … Reader Elan Tavor raises an interesting question: With rumors flying about the NFL possibly abandoning its Thursday-night games after next season, what would that move mean — if it were to happen — for the Color Rash uniforms? Would they be scrapped? Used for Sunday- and or Monday-night games? Used as all-purpose alternates? Discuss. … Yesterday was the anniversary of the Jags being awarded the NFL’s 30th franchise. Some good info and archival photos in this slideshow (from our own John Ekdahl). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: The Titans and Browns have a bye this Sunday, so players from those teams who wish to participate in the “custom cleats for charitable causes” promotion will do so in Week 14. … This is interesting: Giants equipment director Joe Skiba has posted an Instagram photo of the retro-styled helmets he’s preparing for the team’s upcoming Thursday-night game, with white facemasks and the old “Giants” wordmark. The thing is, that game isn’t until Dec. 22 — the Jints be wearing their regular helmets for several games before then. So if Skiba has already prepared a separate set of helmets for the Thursday game — and if those are really the helmets the team ends up wearing on Dec. 22, and not just something Skeebs set up for a photo-op — that would appear to violate the one-shell rule. Hmmmm (from Mark Gonillo).

College Football News: Colorado will be going mono-white for the Pac-12 championship game (from Greg Kissler). … Penn State has a new end zone design for the B1G championship game (from William Yurasko). … This will apparently be Navy’s jersey for the Army/Navy game. “Looks like dress whites,” says Jon Hanson. … Here’s a short video clip of a Youngstown State equipment staffer prepping a helmet for Saturday’s game against Jacksonville State (from Robert Hayes). … Yesterday’s Ticker included an item about how Nebraska wore two different jersey designs in the 1980 Sun Bowl. Brett Baker tracked down a player from that game, Randy Huebert, and asked him about the mismatched jerseys. The gist appears to be that new jerseys were ordered for the game, but many of them didn’t fit particularly well, so many players stuck with their old jerseys.

College Hoops News: New court design for Louisiana-Lafayette (from @lblandry). … The SF Dons will wear throwbacks with “short shorts” on Dec. 6, although they’re not really all that short. … Brutal color vs. color game last night in Ann Arbor, as Michigan and Virginia Tech went orange vs. maize (screen shot by Andrew Cosentino). … A better color/color game could be found in Oklahoma, where Okie State and Rogers State went red vs. turquoise (from Spencer Drury).

Soccer News: Small note within this story indicates that Glentoran and Detroit City will wear “commemorative jerseys” for a 2017 friendly. … After most of the most Chapecoense’s team died in a plane crash, the team’s badge is being added to several teams’ jerseys as a memorial gesture. Participating teams St. Etienne and the Uruguayan club Nacional (from Cory Mizer). … The MLS ball design for 2017 features American and Canadian flag imagery. “Let’s honor the flag by kicking it!” says Trevor Williams. … New uniform being teased by the Portland Timbers. Full reveal to follow in January (from Michael Orr).

Grab Bag: Faaaascinating look at alternate U.S. flag designs that were proposed after Alaska and Hawaii joined the union (big thanks to my pal/hero Jamie Jensen). … If you were thinking of getting me something for Christmas, you could do a lot worse than this reprint of the style guide for the 1976 American bicentennial logo, which looks absolutely tremendous (big thanks to Philip Bump). … Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro had repeatedly been photographed wearing an Adidas track jacket during the latter phases of his life, so many of the political cartoons about his death had an Adidas slant, as seen here, here, here, and here. … New logo for LD Products. … Monmouth University has inked a new deal with Under Armour (from Kenny Ocker). … “I just noticed that Donald Trump is using this logo for his presidential transition,” says R. Scott Rogers. “I wondered whether this was an off-the-shelf design dusted off every four years, or if it was designed by or for the Trump campaign. So I did a little digging and found that then-President-Elect Obama used a different logo for his transition in 2008. The two logos are an interesting study in contrasting approaches to political and nationalist design. Both seem to be reaching for a sense of institutional solidity and classicalism, but in very different ways that are emblematic both of the men themselves and of their campaigns.”

NFL players are allowed to wear custom-designed cleats promoting charitable causes this Sunday, and the designs are starting to flood social media. The one shown above will be worn by Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, who’s supporting animal shelters in general and the SPCA of Texas . . . → Read More: NFL Gets Ready for Week 13 Custom Footwear]]>

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NFL players are allowed to wear custom-designed cleats promoting charitable causes this Sunday, and the designs are starting to flood social media. The one shown above will be worn by Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, who’s supporting animal shelters in general and the SPCA of Texas in particular (that’s their logo toward the back of the shoe). The other shoe has a bunch of paw prints and a portrait of Elliott’s own dog (click to enlarge):

The cleat designs are being posted with the hashtag #MyCauseMyCleats. You can see the search results for that hashtag here. You can also learn more about the participating players and their respective charities here.

Meanwhile, I’ll have an ESPN piece later this week on two of the designers who worked with Nike-affiliated players to create their cleats. It should run on Friday.

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Uni Watch Holiday Gift Guide: My annual holiday gift guide will be up today on ESPN, featuring all sorts of cool stuff relating to uniforms, logos, and sports visuals (including the excellent bobblehead “dugout” and other custom bobble environments sold by Bobblehouse Industries, shown above). Check it out here.

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The TickerBy Mike Chamernik

Baseball News: I’m a big fan of videos that show how things are made. Here’s one for baseballs (from Ronnie Poore). … New uniforms are coming for South Carolina. … A recent episode of the Trip to the Mound podcast (34 minutes in) discussed stirrups and the Big Red Machine during the 1970s (from Michael Ortman).

NFL News: Byron Maxwell is known for wearing longer sleeves. His current team, the Dolphins, wore throwbacks this past weekend, and it looks like Maxwell had his sleeves customized (thanks, Preston Feiler). … The Vikings and Cowboys will play a Color Rush game on Thursday. … Snoop Dogg is not a fan of the NFL’s strict uniform policy, particularly regarding players who have different endorsement deals (from Phil). … I really enjoyed a recent feature story on Randall Woodfield, who was drafted by the Packers in 1974 and took part in their training camp that year. He later became the I-5 Killer and may have killed up to 44 people in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1970s and early 1980s. One of his trademarks was that he’d wear a “strip of athletic tape over the bridge of his nose, in the manner of a football player at the time” during his attacks, a detail that helped one of his surviving victims identify him. … Eric Dickerson wore No. 29 throughout his NFL career, but the Rams gave him a No. 25 jersey after they drafted him in 1983. He wore No. 19 at SMU (from Brian Wulff). … Ted Arnold went to the Grey Cup in Toronto on Sunday and took photos of uniforms and equipment displays for the Montreal Alouettes, Saskatchewan Roughriders, BC Lions and Hamilton Tiger-Cats, along with a case of Grey Cup rings.

Hockey News: Anders Nilsson of the Sabres has a rainbow flag on the back of his mask. Earlier this year, Nilsson was one of the Oilers that wrapped their sticks in Pride Tape (from @zubazshorts). … Here’s a good ranking of the road jerseys in the WHL. A few teams look pretty decent, in my opinion.

College Hoops News: Illinois wore throwbacks last night (from Erik Spoonmore). … San Diego State wore N7 unis on Monday (from @noahpeets). … New white alternates for Maryland. It will be the Terps’ fifth uniform in eight games this season (from Matt Shevin). … Auburn wore a number of different uniforms from 1998 to 2004 (from Clint Richardson). … UNC has an archive of sports T-shirts (from @F3Ventura). … Fans will vote on whether Dominican will wear white or black unis, as in Light Side or Dark Side, for Star Wars Night on December 4 (from Brandon Davis).